FLATLINE| JK

thirty one

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER THIRTY IF YOU CHOSE NOT TO READ DUE TO THE TRIGGER WARNING:

Two weeks have passed since Bong Soon's accident, and she has finally begin to process the state of her mental health. In her realization that she had been suicidal and not even had a proper grasp on it, she becomes scared to operate—if she cannot trust herself to save herself, how can she save someone else? Dr. Jeon has been trying to get her into the OR for weeks, but she continually makes excuses to avoid facing her fear. Finally, though, she is forced to reckon with surgery, and is terrified, but Dr. Jeon talks her through the procedure, calms her down, and lets her observe. At the end, Bong Soon feels relieved and happy, but Dr. Jeon confronts her about why she lied to him to get out of surgery. She finally comes clean about her feelings, but facing and conquering surgery gave her a wake up call about her greater purpose. He reminds her that if she wants him to be there for her, she has to communicate with him when she feels that way, and he can help her get help.

There's nothing worse than working the afternoon after a night shift. Four hours of sleep simply are not enough for any functional human being, let alone someone being trusted to cut open real, live human bodies. Waking up feels like you never truly went to sleep in the first place, and the lumpy on-call room beds are the perfect place to form kinks in your spine. As uncomfortable as the bed is, getting out of it is the last thing I want to do right now.

Yet, my buzzing pager does not care what I want to do. I groan, and roll over to reach for the nightside table I put it on before I collapsed into bed. When my hand reaches out, though, it collides clumsily with a warm chest. My tired eyes fly wide open and come face to face with a snoring Kim Taehyung, his arm slung haphazardly over my waist. My groggy brain reminds me that my best friend has to hug something to fall asleep, and that it looks like that something was me.

"Tae." I mumble out, squirming under the dead weight of his limp arm as our pagers continue to buzz obnoxiously. "Taehyung. Tae." I try again, but he doesn't budge. I sigh and clap my hand against his face in one firm slap. The man's eyes open slowly, and my hand is still on his cheek.

"Are we about to kiss right now?" He teases, a humorous smirk growing on his lips. I scoff and push him away by his face. The man finally rouses enough to sit up, rubbing his tired eyes. How he stays so sharp witted while quite literally half asleep is beyond me, considering I have the intellectual capacity of a butternut squash right now. Either way, I climb over him to stand up, stretching my sore body.

"You watch too much TikTok." I reply, silencing both of our pagers before picking mine up to read the message. Taehyung has recently discovered TikTok in his free time, and he sends me many videos on our days off of his own dance videos and other ones he finds amusing. "You went from sleeping harder than a sack of rocks to quoting TikToks at me."

"Well, duh. The Tok is a lifestyle." He says, and I can't help but laugh a bit at that one as I toss him his pager.

"I'm gonna pretend you didn't just call it 'The Tok.'" I say, and Taehyung chuckles. We pause as we both skim the words on the tiny screen. "'Be in the main lobby of the surgical floor at 10:30 to give a warm welcome to a special guest, followed by rounds - Jeon.'" I read aloud, my brows furrowed.

"Special guest?" Taehyung echoes, standing up and rolling his neck. I wrinkle my nose in distaste as his vertebrae crack obnoxiously. "Who?"

"How would I know? Didn't say." I shrug, walking over to the shelves to get some fresh scrubs. I toss Taehyung his size before picking out my own light blue set.